Education

Just as we were about to hit ‘publish’ on this blog, the UK media announced that Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, has hinted at a total ban on plastic drinking straws. The Marine Conservation Society estimates the UK uses 8.5 billion straws every year, which are among the top 10 items found in beach clean-ups. Gove, when asked by the Daily Telegraph if he would prohibit these ephemeral, non-essentials, replied, “Watch this space”.

Until relatively recently, plastic was perceived by most as a ‘miracle material’ – cheap to produce, lightweight, strong, and incredibly durable: Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) takes 400 years to naturally decompose – yet plastic is still used in nearly every industry across the globe. We have gorged ourselves with the fossil fuel-derived material so much that now it’s impossible not to see it quite literally float up in our faces. Plastic peppers our shores, and forms such as The Great Pacific Garbage the size of Texas (a conservative estimate). Plastic has even climbed up the food chain to end up in our food. Personally speaking, I would not be surprised if, in a few years’ time, we discover that several newly-prevalent health conditions are linked to (if not caused by) our exposure to the stuff. Sadly, our indulgence has caught up with us, and only now have we realised the extent of the problem. Unlike cardboard or wooden packaging, no single piece of plastic ever made has decomposed since it started rolling off production lines. Watch this 1970s TV commercial if you’re in any doubt as to how attitudes to plastic have changed…!

One particular form of the ‘eternal stuff’ is being particularly condemned: the plastic bottle. The Guardian has reported that in the UK we buy 1 million plastic bottles a minute, with UK households recycling 16 million of them a day. Although we may think that we’re doing our job here, National Geographic states only 9% of plastic bottles are recycled. However, signs point to there being no slow down in plastic usage, with the plastic decomposition clock constantly being reset. We are only just beginning to understand how plastic waste is impacting systems and their functions around our beautiful planet. Forbes has reported that by 2050, the oceans will contain more plastic in weight than fish! Plastic waste that reaches our seas every year can kill as many as 1 million sea creatures, according to UNESCO. And it’s not just sea creatures ingesting this toxic waste. A recent study by Ghent University in Belgium has found that people who regularly eat seafood ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic a year, the long-term effects of which are unknown. And closer to home, Plymouth University found one-third of all fish caught in the UK contained tiny pieces of plastic.

This self-inflicted damage to our planet and our health lit a growing fire beneath us – Glastonbury, for one, has banned plastic bottles beyond 2019. Below are just a few of the businesses looking to reduce plastic.

Out with the New, in with the Old: Let’s get back to Glass!

SodaStream – whilst it may be condemned by the sugar lobby, at least offers an alternative to buying multiple packages for its fizzy drinks. CEO Daniel Birnbaum says that, until now, there was no other material to contain the fizzy stuff, but claims its own reusable plastic bottle can replace 2,000 single-use ones. The company also offers glass bottles, which last longer and are easier to clean. For Parisians – the government in Paris has introduced public sparkling water fountains to discourage those from buying it bottled – just don’t forget your lemon!

Canadian social enterprise, The Plastic Bank, is replacing single-use plastic bottles with cardboard instead, which, even if it doesn’t get recycled, takes much less time to biodegrade. Pound for pound, plastic can be more valuable than steel. As most people are aware, the most polluted places are home to the most disadvantaged people. The Plastic Bank encourages these communities to return plastic to the bank in exchange for money.

Whilst we’ve been consciously saving money by making our own meals, we’ve actually been letting the planet down by using Ziplock bags to save space in our rucksack. (I have often marvelled why it’s impossible to buy a tier of paper bags tied together by a string – after all, the local bakery has them in multiples!) Blue Avocado has produced reusable snack bags for food and other items, made from recycled plastic bottles. Incidentally, the soft drinks industry has insisted that consumers will not accept recycled plastic if it’s opaque. We (and surely 99% of anyone with a conscience) argue to the contrary. It’ll just take some explaining and education.

A company that has long been conscious of health, Whole Foods seems to be leading the way in plastic reduction on the [high end] high street. In 2008, it swapped plastic bags for paper, which had a knock-on educational impact on customers. In addition, it also offers biodegradable alternatives for plates, cutlery and take-out items.

Let’s Co-operate to Ameliorate

As with any movement that requires massive financial and behavioural shifts, we’ll need to corporate around the globe to make change happen. Fortunately, experts such as as our ‘global treasures’, Sir David Attenborough (whose Blue Planet II series was set to ‘touch’ a billion people, as we marvelled in this blog), can have a big impact on our consciousness, and help educate the next generations who are saying ‘Enough!’ Even The Queen has also sought to reduce plastic straw usage at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

By using a combination of ‘law and nudge’, we will get there, but writing this as an environmental science graduate, it won’t happen fast because plastic’s still so cheap to produce.

Here are some ways YOU can cut down on plastic usage via the NGO, Greenpeace:

Carry a reusable bottle. This also is a great way to save money! Here’s a link to where you can fill your bottle up in the UK.

Reject the straws. Do you really need a straw for that drink? If you’re a restauranteur / bar owner, think about replacing plastic straws with cardboard ones.

Carry a reusable coffee cup: 2.5 billion coffee cups which are thrown away every year in the UK because a thin layer of plastic is laminated onto the paper, making them difficult to recycle – less than 1 in 400 are recycled. A lot of coffee shops now offer a discount if you bring your own cup, too!

Try to avoid excess packaging for fewer food miles and more paper bags. Better yet, try to shop at your local grocer. Additionally, supermarkets need to also look into reducing their packaging.

Don’t use plastic cutlery. When you’re on the go, these are convenient (and free), but look into taking along a reusable fork or even a spork.

Trade in shop-bought milk for your milkman’s in a traditional glass bottle. Believe it or not, milkmen still exist – find your local one here.

Avoid microbeads. The good news is, the UK has banned these from 2018, however some may still be on the shelves, so be sure to check for polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and nylon.

Remember your reusable bag. Figures show that since the plastic bag charge was introduced in England, there’s been a massive 85% drop in their use.

Whether you have children of your own, or are simply interested in the future of our society, you can’t help have noticed growing concern about today’s young people and their perceived need to stay ‘on and connected’ 24/7, 365 days a year, looking cool, in all the right places – via social media or a networked game. There’s little room for bad hair days, a bedroom as sanctuary, inky love letters pushed under the door, or the gradual discovery of the intimate. Even fewer chances to stare into the fire, or out the horizon, or generally get bored (which is good for creativity).

I recently attended a talk by one of the most dynamic speakers I’ve heard, Will Ord, an author and trainer in educational philosophy. Arriving late, I perched on the steps of the girls’ school theatre where he immediately invited the audience of assembled parents to call out what learning success looked like. These duly flowed, and included creativity, expression, academic commitment, love of learning, good grades and good relationships with others. I had a feeling he’d come back to them later…

THE STATE WE’RE IN

Ord proceeded to quote some shocking stats to describe the state we’re in when it comes to mental health, quoting Oliver James’s book Affluenza which states that levels of depression amongst girls in the top social classes rose from 24% in 1987 (when I was almost a teen) to 38% in 1999. A recent media article showed how between 2005 -2012 there was a 54% rise in the number of young people prescribed antidepressants in the UK, triggering the issue to be raised as a matter of concern by the World Health Organisation.

THE ANSWER IS BENDING IN THE WIND

So, why this worrying increase? Let’s take macro factors first. In 1968, our planet supported 3.5Bn people, but by the time today’s child reaches 18, it’ll be 10-12Bn, with all the associated pressures: water shortages, pollution, energy crises, conflict and jobs deficits as robots replace humans. This dystopian vision is not lost on our intellectually fervent, ear to the ground youth. So, how can we help them cope with such stresses at the individual level? “Help them grow roots so they can bend in the wind”, coached Ord. Yet, even he admitted that adapting takes time, indeed, the modern ‘thinking’ brain has taken some 350M years to evolve from its primitive, reptilian form, dominated by the limbic system of primal urges.

This past decade has witnessed one of the most notable brain adaptations for years as we have assimilated screens into our every waking hour. The 18 year old of today has spent an average of 4 years, 24/7, on a screen. Given that these devices light up our brains like pinball machines, it’s a wonder that adults, let alone young people, find it hard to relax, or even sleep the required 7-8 hours. Research this year showed 1 in 5 young people wake up in the night to send or check messages on social media. Hence, Ord welcomes techniques such as mindfulness being taught in schools to counteract or recalibrate the brain. But it’s not just screen time he’s worried about…

THE PENDULUM ALSO SWINGS BACK

Some see the UK’s exam-focussed education system, which has seen has attainment go up, but mental health go down, is the result of an attempt to reverse previous decades of declining literacy and numeracy. But have we conflated cramming with learning? The new style GCSEs our 16 year olds will sit in 2018 are akin to the old O-levels, with hardly any coursework to give exam-stressed teenagers a chance to prove their ability, and by association, their worth. Is it too simplistic a notion to suggest the pendulum has swung back too far, and is cutting off our nose to spite our face? Incidentally, Ord confessed he attended no fewer than 6 schools over 8 years, ending up at one of the most academic in the nation, whereupon he became adept at getting other pupils to do his work for him. Funnily enough, the strategy didn’t pay off when it was exam time. On a serious note, Ord cautioned us not to be ‘curling parents’ – constantly smoothing the ice in front of our children’s path. It was becoming clear that our true mission should be to educate young people to cope better with life.

LET THEM F.A.I.L.

By definition, learning involves the undulation of understanding a new concept, and then finding it tricky when left alone to solve a task, as with homework. (Hence the tendency for some parents to leapfrog the hard stuff by doing it for them.) But, as Truman Capote, author of novella-turned-film, Breakfast AtTiffany’s, remarked, ‘Failure is the seasoning that gives success its flavour’. Echoing this, Ord noted that failing isn’t failing if it stands for F.A.I.L – First Attempt In Learning, noting that, contrary to popular belief, IQs are not fixed, but can increase: it’s all down to mindset. Sketching a helpful diagram, he referred to the importance of letting children fall into ‘the pit of learning’, and letting them learn how to get out – by themselves. Archimedes did it, and that Eureka feeling of ‘I solved it!’ is usually followed by, ‘Let’s do it again!’

Practice + Strategy + Effort -> Change

Getting out of the pit alone takes optimism, focus, patience and determination. Apparently, in any classroom, 50% of pupils don’t mind the pit, and 50% hate it. The former have a growth mindset, so will find life easier. The latter have a fixed mindset, believing there’s no room to improve: I’ve always been bad at maths, there’s no point trying harder – which is an attitude that just gets worse when problems arise.

As I listened to these theories, I wondered, could the failure to teach children to get out of the pit explain the fact university drop-out rates have more than doubled in recent years, due to poor mental health. (There was a sharp rise (28%) in the number of students requesting counselling in 2015-6 compared to 2013-14.) Mindset is now of such interest to educationalist and employers, thanks to the likes of researchers such as Carol Dweck, that her theories are being embraced in the Far East (traditionally seen as a harbinger of ‘rote learning’) as well as Europe, where she insists the word, ‘Yet’ is added to statements such as ‘I can’t do this’ (Yet).

THE ‘GROWTH MINDSET’ VS THE ‘FIXED MINDSET’

So it’s incumbent on us to foster the growth mindset because, as Oliver James notes in his latest book, Not In Your Genes, genetic variants are only responsible for between 1-5% of our psychological individuality. Nurture wins over nature. But the right sort of nurturing is needed. Consider this: on their 5th birthday, a child from the top social class will have received 5 and a half times more positive feedback than their working-class counterpart. Yet, the grass isn’t always greener. Ord described the middle class hazard of nurturing ‘The Brittle Bright’ and ‘The Imposter Syndrome’ borne out by children who are told they’re geniuses, yet feel like failures. These are the kids who are highly coached to remember facts, rather than take risks in their work, (not ‘pit’ for them) and they’ve rarely had their bubble burst! We’ve all met one or two of them…

LET’S GET ‘PIT HAPPY’

As a music player who wields the ‘No practice means no screens!’ placard with my own children, I was heartened to hear that activities that nurture the growth mindset include sport and music. Indeed, basketball hero, Michael Jordan, famously stated, “I’ve failed over, and over, and over again. That is why I succeed.” Yet our arguably over-academic curriculum sees most timetables include just an hour’s sport per week, despite increasing evidence showing exercise boosts cognitive function. (Notwithstanding the physical benefits, and not to mention our childhood obesity crisis.)

“Let’s get our kids pit happy,” was Ord’s rallying cry, but he also called for chances for students to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes to help young people imagine how their actions will affect others, and how to be kind and collaborative. My 17 year old nephew just returned from a Kenyan village where he’d helped construct new school buildings. When I asked what he’d got out of it, he replied he’d been struck by how happy the pupils were despite having nothing of any material value, and few life-changing opportunities. Such experiences also nurture creative thinking, and how to prepare an argument.

Ord also underlined that listening is the key to forming good relationships, adding it should also include listening to the inner self before deciding whether to react to a situation. Importantly, he urged us parents to take care people don’t always listen to their ‘inner critical voice’, taking it to be ‘the truth’. Then, returning to the start of his talk, we all noted how few of the concepts described above were included in those ‘measures of success’ we had called out earlier. Chief amongst our omissions was, arguably, ‘the ability to care’. And when looking for cures to today’s mental health decline, perhaps we should reflect that the word ‘cure’ is derived from the Latin to ‘care’. This struck a personal chord, yet, above all, I left reflecting on the fact that in 1967 we were invited to ‘Turn on, tune in, drop out’. Sixty years on, perhaps now’s the time to ‘Turn off, tune in, climb out’.